


And All the King's Ostrich Horses and All the King's Benders

by orphan_account



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Batman Beyond, DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M, Swearing, Terry is the avatar, The rest are royalty of some sort or other, There are a lot of flashbacks, fusion au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 19:03:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6021370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terry is the Avatar. He is sent to the Fire Nation to train with the royal family and the visiting Earth Prince. Along the way, he gets to hear the story of the last Avatar before him. The one who had the shortest reign as the Avatar in recorded history.</p>
<p>Discontinued.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Terry collapses unceremoniously on the ground. His muscles ache and everything down to his bones stings uncomfortably. He rubs at his face, feels the dirt on his hands grind into his skin and ignores it in favour of attempting to soothe his burning skin.

“What’s the matter, kid? You were doing so well!”

The voice is gleeful, taunting. Terry would attempt to shut his trainer up if he didn’t have concrete evidence all over his body that such an approach would not work in the slightest. Instead he makes a rude hand gesture at the man.

Jason responds by flicking a hard stone at his head. It makes his headache worse.

“Giving up already? At this rate, Dick will know more about earth bending than you by the time you get into an actual fight. Up an’ at ‘em kid.”

“Go away,” Terry mumbles into his hands. “We’ve been at this for hours now. I have the right to frequent breaks.”

“Yes, because the forces of evil will certainly stop mid-fight in order for you to have a tea break.” Jason lounges on a raised patch of stone next to him. His helmet is off and in his lap, his fingers tapping lightly on it in an improvised cheerful rhythm. Terry does not look up to see the amusement that is surely there in his trainer’s eyes. Jason is a bit of an asshole like that.

“Well, if you’re not going to get up, I might as well make awkward small talk.” Jason’s tone is still light, and it’s evident that he isn’t planning on putting up more of a fight to get Terry back to work. He’s enjoying this too much, the bastard. “How would you say you’re liking training so far?”

“Couldn’t they have gotten me a less evil earth bending trainer?” Terry cuts straight to the chase. It makes Jason laugh.

“You’re in the Fire Nation, kid. I was the closest most efficient thing on hand. Not that they would have chosen anyone else above me.” He chuckles. “I’ve got the Fire Lord wrapped around my pinkie.”

“No you don't,” Terry grumbles. Jason shrugs.

“I've got his family,” he amends. “Maybe not Damian, but that kid is hard to please. I think his body guard is the closest thing he has to a friend. Especially since he still has a bodyguard.”

It never fails to make Terry uncomfortable whenever Jason refers to the Fire Lord as “kid”, when he is approaching thirty-two, a good sixteen years older than Terry himself.

“That, and not many can say they can teach you how to make and handle lava.”

“Is that the reward for all this suffering? Some boiling rock?” Terry makes a helpless gesture at the sky. He does like the idea of lava (it is so, _so_ cool), but he also reserves the right to be a bit melodramatic after the boot camp he has been through so far. Jason offers him a not-light-at-all pat on the back that makes him sway forward. It puts more strain on his aching legs to prevent himself from face planting and he groans with the effort.

“Kids these days. So ungrateful.” Jason clicks his tongue. “The last Avatar would have done this with a smile on his face. Hell, he could probably have put up a decent fight.”

There’s something about the wistfulness in Jason’s tone that makes Terry frown. He knows about the previous Avatar. Heard of him in stories - the briefest reign anyone ever had as the bridge between worlds, barring the unnamed one who got killed as a baby and was only recorded in history decades later. This affectionate tone when speaking of him is not something everyone around Terry does, but there does seem to be a trend in the Fire Lord’s family. It triggers his impulsive sense of curiosity.

Now would be as good a time as any to find out more about the Avatar that came before him. His mother had said that these people were likely to know.

“You’re the fourth person I’ve heard talk of him that way,” he pries, trying for nonchalant as he leans back and failing horribly at it when his abdominal muscles twinge and threaten to let him fall backwards. “Mom says that you people knew him when he was still alive. That maybe you could teach me a thing or two about him.”

Jason’s eyes flicker with something Terry can’t pinpoint. His fingers stop tapping and begin to stroke the sleek metal of his helmet. He stares at his own reflection in shiny red.

“Did you try this with Dick or Damian, kid?”

He still sounds amused, but now there’s something different to it. A layer of dry bitterness that punctures the amusement and makes Terry wish he hadn’t asked. Terry idly plays with some pebbles on the ground.

“I did get something of an answer from Dick. Damian seemed kind of unapproachable.”

“I hope you had Dick in the room when you asked.”

“I did. The Fire Lord got really defensive and there was some angry posturing that, frankly, discouraged me from doing anything other than hiding from him after that.”

Jason huffs a laugh. Doesn’t take his eyes off the helmet. He mulls it over for a few moments. Then he looks at Terry with resignation in his eyes.

“What do you want to know, kid?”

Terry regards him carefully out of the corner of his eye. He doesn’t know the man very well, but from what Dick has told him, bringing up anything that will annoy him will not end well. The past, Dick made sure to emphasize, is something that will annoy him.

Terry never was too smart when it came to danger.

“Is it true that you knew him?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

There’s a clear warning in Jason’s voice. Terry resists the urge to scoot further away.

“A manner of speaking?”

“Meaning that we knew him, but not that he was the Avatar.” Jason looks bitter, sad, as he says it. The metal creaks threateningly under his fingers, but doesn’t budge. Jason is proud of that helmet, as far as Terry knows. It’s his trademark. Terry can see the engravings on the edges, symbols that he doesn’t recognise. Flowing, sophisticated text.

Terry looks down at the pebbles beneath his hand. He lets them hover a centimetre above ground, feels their movement.

“Tell me about him,” he says quietly. Jason’s eyes flicker as he looks over at Terry. Terry focuses on the pebbles.

Jason leans back to let his face be warmed by the sun for a long moment. He closes his eyes and breathes. 

“Avatar Tim Drake was a damn idiot, and we all made sure to tell him at every opportunity.”  


	2. Chapter 2

Jason strode through the doorway to his room already midway through loosening the collar of his uniform. He pulled irritably at the cuffs and pried open the coat with just a little more than the necessary violence. He stopped midway through pulling off his hair ornament when he heard the soft knock on the doorframe.

“If you’re here to tell me to go home, I’m all for it,” he said without turning around. He growled softly when the ornaments refused to budge from his tangled mess of a hairstyle.

Suddenly, gentle hands were prying his off the mess and sifting carefully through the locks.

“Want to tell me what happened out there?”

Jason crossed his arms petulantly, reluctant to relax under the soothing hands. Dick pushed at him, and he slowly sat down on the bed.

“It’s stupid,” he said quietly. Dick hummed sympathetically. The hands didn’t stop.  
Dick would be sure to stick around until Jason caved and told him what was wrong. The thought made him sigh. He was tired and angry, and wished that Dick and the whole palace would just leave him alone for once. He wanted to be angry alone.

It took ten minutes of petulant growling and hair tangling, enough that Dick managed to unravel the curls to get the ornament free (at which point he opted to grab the brush on the nightstand and go the extra mile in stalling) before Jason sighed again, the fight draining out of him.

“Your dumb brother is dumb,” he said simply. Dick waited patiently for Jason to explain further, but Jason was stubborn this time, and the brush was at this point gliding easily through his hair. Jason would die before he admitted how nice it felt.

“What did he do this time?” Dick asked gently. Jason shrugged his shoulders, feeling the gold chains around his neck jingle. He had forgotten to take them off after the coat, and now he was too occupied with the hands and brush on his head.

“We may or may not have gotten into a fight in the courtyard,” he admitted, the words coming slowly to him. Dick huffed, amusement clear in his voice as he spoke next.

“In full royal garb? How that must have looked.”

“Kid insulted my mother.”

“The Earth Queen?”

“My real mother.”

Dick hissed softly. “What did you do?”

Jason was pleasantly surprised by the decrease in disapproval in Dick’s voice. It probably would not last very long.

“I may or may not have attempted to shove a gold spike up his nose.”

Dick stopped brushing for a moment, looked at Jason in barely contained horror.

“Tell me there was no one else in the vicinity.”

“Bruce broke us up,” Jason grouched. Dick came into his line of vision and took a hold of his jaw.

“Jason, you can’t kill my little brother when we have a party in the evening to attend. You need to schedule excessive bleeding for times when we won’t have guests.”

Jason stuck his tongue out at him. Dick rolled his eyes.

“Did you do any serious damage?”

“If I did, would I still be angry?” Jason snapped. Dick nodded thoughtfully. He sat down on the bed next to Jason, tossing the brush onto the pillow. Jason ran a hand along his face.

“How long will the celebration tonight be?”

“Worried you won’t have the energy?” Dick smirked at him. “Sadly, we’ll be stuck for a while. The Northern Water Tribe chief is coming here with his family. They’re going on a tour of all the kingdoms to introduce their new prince to the world. They’ll be making an entrance within the near hours, according to mom.”

“Does the Northern Water Tribe and their politics _really_ concern me?” Jason whined. “I mean, I’m not even part of this court. I’m not of royal blood. I shouldn’t have to deal with this.”

“That argument stopped working when the Earth Queen took you in officially.”

“I didn’t ask her to do that.”

“But your mother did ask her to help. Are you really going to dishonor that?”

Jason felt the fight drain out of him. His shoulders finally began to slump.

“How long will it be once they make their entrance?”

“Not long,” Dick assured. “They’re only showing him off. After that they’re staying for a month before they leave for the Western Air Temple.”

“Meaning we have to keep them busy while they’re here. Got it.”

“Just the prince, I think,” Dick chuckled. He drew Jason’s hair into some semblance of order and managed to work the ornament back into it, to the point where he looked almost respectable again. Jason tugged at it, only for Dick to swat him away.

“It’s just for tonight. When we’re out of the public eye, you can throw all the dirt and sand you want at Dami. Who knows, maybe you’ll even convince the young prince to join you.”

Jason tilted his head as he considered it.

“I suppose that mud would be a nice option to have." 

Dick patted him on the back. “Good enough. Now, come. We need to get you properly dressed for the celebration."

* * *

 

“You shoved a gold spike up the Fire Lord’s nose,” Terry deadpans. Jason waves a finger.

“ _Tried_ being the operative word. Now let me continue. I was getting to the good part.”

* * *

 

The party was large. A gathering of only the most respectable dignitaries of the Fire Nation, assembled in order for the Northern Water Tribe to debut its latest heir. Extravagant might have been a word Jason would use if he could think of it. As it was, he was far too bored to think of anything, save perhaps for the possibilities of getting another shot at Damian without alerting either the royal family or the servants. The key to getting away would be to avoid the detection of Fire Lord Bruce and the lead servant, Alfred. If he could get past them, he was in the clear.

He was huddling behind an ice statue (generously provided by their Northern guests for the festivities) and planning his next move to get close to the little brat when he felt someone brush up against him and settle there, almost leaning over him. A slender hand landed on his shoulder and a light voice spoke softly in his ear.

“Who are we looking at?” Jason looked back and came face to face with a boy around his own age with dark blue eyes and black hair lovingly pinned with all sorts of blue pins. He was dressed in light, blue armour and his smile was impish, so Jason took him for a servant of the visiting tribe. Jason blinked once. Twice. Then he shrugged and went along with it.

“See the young prince over there?” he asked, gesturing subtly with his head.

“The Fire Prince?” the boy asked curiously. Jason nodded and went back to his reconnaissance.

“That’s the one. I’m considering how to play an appropriately magnificent prank on him without alerting his esteemed father or the staff. You got any ideas to share?”

When Jason looked back again, the boy was staring at him as though he had suddenly sprouted another head. Jason waited patiently. The boy stared harder.

“You want to prank the Fire Prince in a room full of dignitaries without alerting anyone of them to you doing it.” The boy shook his head. “That is not going to work.”

“Not all of them need to be bypassed. Most are too scared of who our parents are to do anything, and some just think boys will be boys. It’s good practice for future leaders to be able to deal with hidden threats. So, anything to add to the idea pool?”

“You are of royal blood then?” the boy asked. Jason hummed.

“Close enough, but don’t worry. If we get caught I’ll make sure you aren’t punished. I wouldn’t let them do that for something I dragged you into. So what do you say?”

Jason tilted his head and smiled as innocently as he could. The boy shook his head again, but now he was smiling.

“You’re insane,” he said.

“So you’ll help?”

“We need a plan.”

The two of them then looked around the room. Damian was standing by the east balcony exit, staring at a man in adorned red robes who was trying his best to entertain the young prince. From the looks of it he was failing, and he could tell.

The boy at Jason’s shoulder whispered in his ear.

“There’s a curtain framing the door. Could you sever it?”

Jason nodded. He could see the metal frames which lined the palace in many places reaching over the door. The curtain was close enough that he could just shake it loose if he cracked it in places. He hummed, thought about it.

“Then what? He could easily dodge a curtain that’s coming at him. Wouldn’t be much on its own.”

“That’s where I come in,” the boy said warmly. He stood up a little straighter and gestured for Jason to come along.

They crept around the dining hall carefully. Once they had moved close enough, the boy pulled him down to crouch behind a food table. Jason moved back towards the wall when the boy pushed lightly at him. He looked Jason in the eye.

“Ready?” His smile was bright and mischievous. Jason checked the wall and found an extension of the metal framework. He traced it back to where the curtain hung with his eyes. He nodded.

The boy reached around the corner of the table and put an open hand under his chin. Jason watched in fascination as he blew out a mouthful of mist which dissipated into the air. He nodded towards the east balcony, and Jason turned to look.

The man who Damian was staring down gestured with his wine glass as he spoke. When Damian kept looking at him as though there was an unexplained point to his continued speaking, he tugged nervously at his collar and raised the glass to his lips. Damian was looking around in boredom when he suddenly heard a yelp and turned to see a chunk of frozen wine fall to the floor.

Beside Jason, the boy started bending something with smooth movements, but Jason could not tell what.

Damian frowned as he leaned down to inspect the frozen drink. Jason took the opportunity to forcibly press four fingers into the metal frame to his side and twist them, cracking the metal in a jagged line to where the curtain freed itself from its hooks. It fell heavily towards Damian’s head.

The prince was suspicious, though, and ready for them. He stood up again and turned around just in time to raise a hand and swiftly cut a clean hole that would not spark a real fire in the curtain. The remains of it pooled ungracefully around his feet. He looked at it in offense while the nobleman sputtered next to him. Jason was just about to be disappointed.

The Damian looked around and _flinched_ when he caught sight of his father pointing an irate finger at his face. It took him only a moment to realise that it was in fact an ice statue reshaped to look like the Fire Lord, but by then he had already jumped like a frightened cat. The damage to his calm and detached image was done.

Behind the food table, Jason was reeling with laughter. He clutched at the grinning Water Tribe boy and cackled while the boy shushed him insistently. It was of little help, as they were both giggling when they noticed someone standing close behind them. They looked up as one at Dick’s carefully schooled face. He was failing to contain his amusement.

“So I see you made a friend,” he said, sighing. Jason grinned innocently. The boy was now cowering near him with real fear in his eyes. Jason squeezed his hand reassuringly.

Dick shook his head and reached for them. The boy flinched but Jason held onto him. Dick pulled them to their feet.

“We should get you out of here before he reaches Alfred. Wouldn’t want you two to ruin the young prince’s entrance with your pranks.”

That seemed to relax the boy somewhat, and he followed willingly as Dick and Jason pulled him away from the table. They blended into the crowd until they could not see Damian anymore. Then the boy tugged at Jason’s sleeve.

“I have to go. Will I see you again?” he asked, smiling kindly. Jason grasped his hand and leaned in to speak quietly.

“Find me after the prince’s reveal. Then we can try to do something more before the party ends.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.” The boy smirked. “But I’ll do my best.”

They let go of each other and the boy slipped off into the crowd. Jason followed Dick to where their family would be gathering for the reveal. The look on Bruce’s face when he came close told him he would be in trouble later.

* * *

 

“So, did you ever figure out that he was the prince?” Terry grins.

“You know, I don’t appreciate your tone,” Jason says, smirking. “To my credit, neither did Dick. I am told our expressions were hilarious to see when the prince was revealed.”

He taps his fingers on the helmet, drags a foot across the hard earth. Then he looks at the sun high above them and frowns.

“It’s getting late. We should get changed if we want to make it to dinner in time.”

Terry looks up as well and sighs. The dull ache in his bones is settling and discouraging him from moving from his position. He tries anyway, and Jason is gracious enough to help him up. When Terry starts walking, he realises that he does not sense Jason following. He turns around to see Jason still standing there, shoulders tight and hands slack in their grip on the helmet. His head is bowed, his eyes sad.

Terry turns back and decides that he can go on ahead. This is not something he wants to intrude on.


	3. Chapter 3

Jason doesn’t come to dinner that evening. Instead the family receives notice from Alfred that he has retreated to his room and wishes for some solitude. This does not seem too uncommon, as the family simply continues on to their meal. It seems that Terry is the only one disturbed by the news. 

He is picking at his food and frowning, and when he looks up he spots the Fire Lord looking at him oddly. 

Damian sits at the end of the table, in a grand chair that screams his importance to the room. Behind him stands his personal bodyguard together with Jason’s visiting one. They stand straight and at attention, for a purpose Terry cannot fathom. Damian glances at his own guard briefly, and then addresses Terry.

“It has come to my attention that I have upset you, Terry.” Terry blinks, dumbfounded. The Fire Lord continues. 

“Earlier today I may have come off as brash and unseemly in my reactions,” here he glances at the guard again, “and I had no intention of being rude to our honored guest. Please accept my apology.”

Terry sits with his fork halfway to his mouth for a few seconds, and then puts it down on the plate. 

“Of course, my lord,” he says in the formal tone he has had drilled into him since before he arrived. “It is no problem.”

“Very well,” Damian nods. He then resumes eating, together with the rest of the table. The guards behind him glance at each other, and Jason’s guard smiles for a fleeting moment. Cass, Terry thinks her name is. Yes, that’s probably it.

Terry hasn’t been training with Jason for too long, living here for only slightly more time, but he can see the way the family and Jason interact with the servants. The way Cass and Colin can move and act, they might as well be part of the family. If anything, they are the ones who insists on upholding the formality on many occasions. 

Dinner continues in silence, with only the sound of cutlery clinking with plates. Terry frowns as he picks at his food, considering the situation with Prince Jason. This gets the attention of the Fire Lord’s adopted brother Dick, who looks questioningly at him over the rim of his glass. 

“Is something wrong, Terry?” he asks. Terry clears his throat and sits back in his chair. Suddenly everyone is looking at him. 

“No, I… I think I may have upset the prince.”

“Did something happen during your training?” Dick asks. He sits across from him and sips at a soup that differs from the plates of meat in front of everyone else. His expression is expertly mild and approachable. Terry finds it comforting.

“No, nothing happened.” To Jason, at least. Terry’s bruises tell another story. “It’s just, after we finished training he told me a story. About the Avatar before me.”

At that admission, the atmosphere around the table changes. Suddenly it seems to make sense to everyone exactly why Jason is not with them. Dick offers him a sympathetic smile. 

“That explains it. He gets like that sometimes. It’s best just to leave him alone when he does.”

Terry glances at the Fire Lord, notes the stoic look on his face. His bodyguard looks somewhat concerned.

“So you got him to tell you the story, then?” Dick asks. “You must be very special. Jason doesn’t like to talk about such things with just anyone.”

Terry does not know what to say to that. Damian leans forward a little, suddenly interested.

“Special indeed. Did he tell you the whole story?”

Terry startles at being addressed to casually by the lord of a nation. He has heard a lot about Damian even before he was cleared to travel to the Fire Nation, and even after two weeks of living with the family he is not used to seeing such a person in the flesh. Really, he feels similarly about all of them for the moment, barring maybe Jason. Jason is easy to talk to, somehow, when Terry keeps to the right topics. 

Terry suspects that it is because they are both from the Earth Kingdom. There is a certain bluntness to their ways that Terry finds comfortable, familiar. It differs from all the formal language and delicate traditions the Fire Nation is so proud of. Terry has yet to figure out why Jason likes to spend so much time here instead of his home in Ba Sing Se. 

“He told me how they met,” Terry says. “At a party hosted here in the palace.”

“Good times,” Dick smiles wistfully. “Did he tell you that Tim tricked us?”

“I figured that out halfway through the story,” Terry replies. Damian huffs lightly. 

“I could have told them who the young prince was if they were not so busy destroying palace property. I still cannot believe the two of you did not figure it out.”

“He was dressed as a servant,” Dick says, raising an eyebrow. “He also managed to trick you.”

“Juvenile pranks, that is all.” Damian raises his cup and Terry thinks he must be imagining the slight smile before he puts it to his lips. 

“The two of them got into a lot of trouble together,” Dick says warmly.  

Terry picks at his food. He cuts a small piece of meat and chews it slowly. He looks at Dick thoughtfully. 

“What do you want to ask, Terry?” Dick asks kindly. He sips at his soup and waits patiently for Terry to finish his bite.

“You knew him, I know that. That’s all I know. I mean, he wasn’t even the Avatar yet. Few history books have more than footnotes about him.”

“He had little time to make his mark on the world,” Dick agrees. Terry swallows.

“But he is still my past life. He is me, to some extent, and I barely know him. I’d like to.”

“You barely know a lot of your past lives,” Damian argues. 

“Yes, but it’s not the same. I can read about them as much as I want. Everyone knows the stories. Tim is essentially a mystery. A sentence in a history book. Was he not more than that?”

He is frustrated, and it shows. To his right he can see Damian averting his eyes. Dick puts his bowl down and sighs slowly through his nose. 

“We can tell you what we remember, Terry, but you must understand that Tim had a lot of secrets. We can tell you about the boy we knew. Nothing else.”

Terry nods solemnly. Dick sucks in some more air through his mouth.

“There is not a lot to tell about Tim in terms of his career as the Avatar. You know that. It’s because his father, the chief of the Northern Tribe, wanted to keep him a secret until the sages would find him at sixteen. He wanted to somehow use his son’s status to boost his own. The whole idea was never really revealed since he died before that could happen.”

Terry bites the inside of his lip. He nods. Dick continues.

“As a result, he did not tell us of his status. We knew him only as the prince.”

“There is not much to say about Tim the Avatar,” Damian cuts in. “but there are things to say about Tim the prince. Tim the individual.”

The two brothers look at each other, Dick with understanding and Damian with stoic sadness. Dick smiles kindly.

Terry considers the new information. He knew that Tim died before he could become the Avatar. That is all the information people really care to remember. He cuts slowly into his food as he formulates the next sentence in his head.

“I want to know who he was as a person.” He looks up at Dick with conviction in his eyes. “Tell me who he was. Please.”

Dick stares at him for a moment, just taking in his expression. He seems happy with what he sees. 

“Ask, and we will answer. What do you want to know?”

Terry thinks for a few moments, but he already knows some of the questions he wants to ask. 

“What did he look like?”

“Black hair and blue eyes,” Dick answers easily. 

“Dark skin,” Damian adds. “Thin eyes. Like a lot of the people from the poles.”

“He was often dressed in the colours of his tribe,” Dick continues. “Sometimes he would assimilate the colours of the places he visited, but he preferred his own armour. Said it worked best for movement, which made absolutely no sense if you ask me. Those belts and pouches made little to no movement possible.” 

Damian huffs delicately. 

“Says the man who trains dressed in a sheet.”

“A very carefully pinned sheet which is not in the way of anything,” Dick shoots back without looking up. Damian smiles.

“As I remember it, he was quite adept at fighting you. I remember one memorable sparring session where you came inside covered in mud.”

“He was a dirty cheater and between the two of them there was no sportsmanship.”

Terry squints. “The two of them?”

“Tim and Jason,” Dick explains. “They were always teaming up. Even when the rules of a game meant they were not allowed to.”

Damian nods. “They were very close. Close enough that we never won when they worked together.”

Terry thinks about training with Jason. He cannot imagine that going any worse. He wonders if any teamwork between the two of them might even accidentally lead to his untimely death.

“Do you have any other questions, Terry?” Damian asks. Terry snaps out of his thoughts.

“Um, right. What was he like? Just generally?”

Dick clenches his jaw to keep from laughing. “Not a proper noble in behaviour. I’ll give you that.”

Damian elaborates. “He was not unhappy with his position, but he could be… critical. He was rarely so warm in manner as he was with these two and Jason.”

He gestures to Dick and Cassandra. Cass smiles the slightest bit.

“He was with Steph,” She replies. Terry tilts his head. 

“Who?”

“She is the chief of the Southern Tribe,” Dick explains. “Sweet woman, but she has a mean right hook.”

“A spiked one, if you threaten her.” Damian says fondly. 

“You can meet her if you ever visit the South,” Dick says to Terry. “She and Tim were very close. Tell her who you are, she’ll take to you right away. She was always talking about how amazing it is that the Avatar reincarnates. Had a real fascination with it.”

Terry notes the information. He looks at Damian when the latter speaks.

“Tim could also be defensive of those he cared about. He had a sharp tongue and a sharper temper. I admit I sometimes enjoyed arguing with him. He was far more eloquent than most.”

“Not that your arguments were ever particularly well handled.” Dick smiles teasingly at Damian, and the latter smirks back. 

“Semantics,” Damian adds dismissively. 

The conversation continues like that for some time. Terry finds that he has a hard time getting more questions in between the banter of the two brothers, but he doesn’t mind much. The atmosphere of the wide room becomes considerably warmer once Dick and Damian get into a conversation about Tim’s favourite practical jokes, and suddenly it feels a little less like an event and more like a family dinner. It makes Terry relax. He’s grateful for it. 

Cassandra stands behind Damian and smiles softly at the two brothers. After a little while she leans on the back of the chair and begins adding to the conversation. Terry watches in fascination as she effortlessly blends into the dynamics of the conversation. They look like a family. 

Terry wonders what it looked like when Tim was a part of it. When Jason was. 

Later that evening, when they are walking out of the dining hall and going their separate ways to their bedrooms, Terry follows Dick into the hallway that holds his room. After a moment’s hesitation in which he wrestles with himself, he says Dick’s name loud enough for him to hear. Dick turns around, looks at him expectantly. 

“Yes, Terry?”

Terry feels the near untameable urge to fidget, but he is the Avatar. He can do this. 

“I had one more question,” he says lamely. Dick tilts his head inquisitively. 

Terry breathes in, out. He avoids Dick’s eyes. 

“What would he have thought of me? If we were to meet?”

Dick stares at him for a long moment. Then he smiles gently. 

Terry isn’t looking up, and Dick is light on his feet. Terry has no chance of avoiding the surprise hug. 

“He would have loved you, Terry,” Dick says into his hair. “Absolutely loved you.”

Terry hesitates for only a second. Then he hugs Dick right back.

“Thank you,” he says, and squeezes him tight.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one took some time. Sorry about that. School got a bit much, but I'm working on the next one :)

Two days later Terry finds himself in the courtyard with Dick, sat across from him on a flat stone by the pond. It is a quiet, sunny day with little activity in the palace. Dick tells him it’s good for their practice. Terry finds it close to maddening. 

Sure, the courtyard is peaceful and comfortable, but Terry is active at heart. Staying in one place for as long as Dick is asking of him seemed like a foolish idea at first glance and a wildly unreasonable one at this point. It is just too hard for him to concentrate. 

Terry can sit down and close his eyes just fine, but then after a few seconds a stray thought will take him away from his presence in nature, or nature itself will distract him in the form of a bug buzzing past his ears. Then he will be looking around and taking in all the ways the sunlight reflects off the surfaces of the palace walls and roofs. It’s an endless circle of him not getting any proper meditation done and becoming more annoyed by the minute. 

Dick, of course, remains patient and unaffected by his deteriorating mood. He simply breathes, smiles, and tells Terry to try again whenever he notices his young pupil drifting. Terry tries, he really does. 

He settles in a comfortable position and closes his eyes again. He breathes deep and tries to ignore the irritation twitching in his mind. Dick speaks slowly, serenely. 

“The world around you is connected, Terry. You just need to find the point where you come in.” They take a few deep breaths together. “Listen to your surroundings. Feel them become part of you.”

Terry can hear the soft whisper of the wind and feel it on his face. He can hear the water in the pond stirring as the turtleducks swim. He can feel the pleasant warmth of the stone beneath him, sturdy and reliable and smooth. None of this feels like it is helping. 

“It’s just there,” he says, unsure of how to phrase his frustrations exactly. “I know I should be feeling something special, but I’m not at all sure what to look for.”

“That’s the thing, though. You’re not looking for anything out of the ordinary. You’re just finding and connecting with what’s already there.” 

Terry hears the grass rustle as Dick stands up and walks closer. He opens his eyes and sees him sit down in front of him. Dick smiles, and Terry raises an eyebrow. 

“What do you see in this courtyard?” Dick asks. Terry senses another unapproachable attempt at teaching. It makes him want to sigh. 

“I see a courtyard.” The look he gives Dick should be enough to tip him off to how unhelpful this is. Dick is undeterred. 

“Tell me. Do it the most basic way you can. Explain as though I were blind and wanted you  to be my eyes.”

Terry wants to say something sarcastic. He really does, but Dick is being so damn  _ patient  _ with him. He can’t fault him for that. So he settles back and looks around, trying to picture how he would explain it to someone who could not see it. 

“It’s a palace courtyard,” he begins hesitantly. “It’s walled in by the west wing of the palace, so it’s a square shape. Red walls and grey roofs, grass that’s starting to dry out before winter, a pond lined with rocks that has a flock of turtleducks in it.”

“Good,” Dick encourages gently. “What else? What are the important details?”

Terry swallows. He tries to consider it the way he thinks Dick does. “It’s… peaceful?”

“Is that a question?”

Terry shakes his head. “It is. It’s comfortable. Calm.”

“Be calm,” Dick says. Terry breathes slowly through his nose. He sits straighter and closes his eyes again. Calm, he thinks. Be calm. 

He listens to the wind and the water. Feels hard and warm stone. Putting real effort into it, he lets the sensations settle in his mind. 

It works, to an extent. He feels a calm settle over his chest, slowing his breathing and relaxing his muscles. His thoughts are gathered and gently disconnected, and he lets his surroundings give him the impression he thinks he is supposed to see. For a long moment, Terry just absorbs it all. Everything he can get, he lets wash over him. 

For a long moment, that is enough, but once it is over he realises that something is still missing. He has yet to accomplish the task he is actually sitting here to complete. Soft swaying grass and running water aside, that seems to be all he can feel. It is not everything he set out to find. 

“This isn’t going to work,” Terry says, still with his eyes closed. “I  _ am  _ looking for something in particular and I’m not finding it here. Whatever is supposed to be linked to my  _ spirit  _ or what have you is clearly not interested in getting in contact with me.”

He is referring to his past lives. Dick knows this, because it was everything Terry could talk about when he agreed to teach him spirituality. A connection with his past lives is something Terry knows could make him infinitely more powerful and knowledgeable, and he has wanted to establish one since he first heard of it. So far, he has yet to succeed. 

It frustrates him that he is unable to fulfil such an essential part of being what he is. It also hurts, because it feels like a failing on his own part. He often wonders whether other Avatars his age would have done it by now, but the recounts of Avatars rarely tell of their lives. The most popular stories, the ones that are passed around and shared, tell of them as paragons of power and peace which he could never hope to be. It is quite discouraging. 

Dick is looking at him, searching him, when he opens his eyes. Terry does not meet his eyes. Instead he waits for another unhelpful lesson to follow and hopes that today’s training will be over quickly. Right now, he wants to go lie down somewhere and not speak to anyone until dinner is served, as improper as that would likely be. 

Dick speaks softly, perfectly in tune with the peace of the courtyard. It almost makes him angry, how obviously simple this philosophy and method are to Dick. Like breathing. 

“Do you want to take a break and try again later, perhaps?” Dick asks. Terry looks him in the eye and considers asking to just go back to his room, but a sense of propriety and the very clear realisation that Dick is really trying makes him stop that thought before it can reach his mouth. He nods mutely, and Dick settles into a more relaxed position on the grass. 

“Do you have any questions for me before we take a break?” Terry tries to stop himself, he really does. 

“Am I an awful avatar?”

Dick blinks. He was evidently not expecting such a question. 

“I mean,” Terry continues. “I know you didn’t know he was the avatar as such, but you must have seen how well he did these things. Surely you must have a frame of reference in which I come up short.”

He gestures vaguely with his hands as he speaks. It does nothing to strengthen his point, but it makes him feel more guarded to have his hands up between them. It is usually his first line of both offense and defence, and he does it almost subliminally in situations like this one. 

Dick frowns, considering. The fact that he has yet to reply makes Terry want to curl up in a hole somewhere, but he is honestly unsure what kind of reaction he was expecting.

“You’re saying that you would be worse than Tim?” 

Terry is internally cringing, but he nods. He stands by his point, however much he regrets bringing it up to begin with. 

“Do you really think that Tim didn’t struggle with these things? He did.” 

Dick’s tone is gentle. 

“Sometimes he really did. He was interested in this kind of connection to nature, for reasons I didn’t come to understand until he was gone.” Dick says it evenly, with little hint towards what his thoughts on the matter. Terry knows that the time it has taken for him to grow up has likely dulled whatever pain Tim’s death caused. It just scares him just what his arrival might have done to bring it back. What it will make them think of him.

It is a thought that is always in the back of his head, regardless of what he is doing. Every inch of this place and every expression on the servant’s faces tells him that he is not the first Avatar to be in this palace. To sit in this courtyard and be this man’s friend. He is a reminder, above all else. 

“I suppose it was really supposed to be the connection you’re looking for right now.” This being the connection to his past lives. “He was careful not to phrase it as such. I helped him best I could, but he had problems letting go of things. Always brooding over something or other, as I understand it.”

“Really?” Terry finds that difficult to believe, though he’s not sure why. 

“I can’t say I know what he was thinking about. He rarely liked to talk about it.” Dick shrugs. “I can imagine several topics, at the least how many secrets he had to keep.”

Terry looks down at his hands. “He was pretty troubled, wasn’t he?”

“Every fourteen-year-old has the world on their shoulders,” Dick says. “It just happened to lean a little more heavily on him.”

“Did it lean on you?” Terry asks. Dick smiles faintly, just a tug of the lips.

“You might not get the impression of it, but I was fairly dramatic at that age. You can ask Damian if you want a list of examples.”

Terry huffs. He draws his fingers over the surface of the rock, and some pebbles that lie near it on the ground slide up to meet him. They twirl around his fingers, roll from the points to his knuckles and back. Dick watches him move them. 

“Hey,” he says after a moment, drawing Terry’s attention. “You want to see something impressive?”

Terry raises an eyebrow. Dick reaches out and plucks a pebble from the back of his hand. He catches another one heading for his wrist, sticks the two between his fingers.

“I used to be able to do this thing with wind tunnels when I was your age,” he says, carefully arranging his hands as he does. “Used it to cheat during training. In essence, I can move rocks in circles if they’re light enough to lift.”

He twirls his fingers, and the pebbles are caught in an air stream that carries them around the curve of his hands. He frowns, concentrating, and they fly down to circle his forearms and twist back up. It looks a lot like plain earthbending, but for the noticeable breeze on Terry’s face that does not accompany the real thing. 

“That  _ is  _ impressive,” Terry says. “An air bending teacher that can earth bend.”

Dick chuckles. “Not something you see every day.”

Terry rolls a pebble between his forefinger and thumb. It’s solid. He squeezes lightly, and it crumbles into fine pieces which he grinds into finer dust with little effort. 

“I think the world might be leaning on me too.”

It feels selfish to say it. Silly. He has not had half the problems that other Avatars - including Avatar Tim - had to deal with. Still, it is a good descriptor for how he feels, and he thinks that no one is as unlikely to judge him for it as Dick is.

“Terry,” Dick says, his eyes on him while the pebbles continue to dance. “I think there’s not a single Avatar who hasn’t thought that. A single person, in fact There’s nothing wrong with thinking it.”

Terry considers what he wants to say, what his feelings actually are. It is difficult for him to pin down. 

“Thank you,” he says, and leaves it at that.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapters six and seven are almost done, so I will be posting them too. Sorry for the wait.

They have a sort of game in the Fire Nation. It is played with a ball, watched and appreciated by many. Reports of it travel far and wide, and it is considered something of a national sport. Terry does not understand it at all.

He does understand the premise of having a national game, not to mention the value of it. He also knows the amusing fact that the Capital and the palace have their own separate version of it with separate rules as to how and when it should be played. As opposed to the rest of the nation, the Capital is home to a lot of elite forces for combat and war: people for whom the conventional rules do not provide enough entertainment.

Terry does not understand the rules for how either version is played. He has studied them, been taught over and over again, but it all just looks like a series of random events in a sequence to him. It makes it quite dangerous to play it with the residents of the palace. It also makes it frustrating to be around them when they practice, because they keep insisting on the validity and simple nature of it. It makes Terry feel foolish and annoyed, because it does not make the sense they want it to make. At least not to people outside the Fire Nation.

“No, no,” Dick insists over a bite of some bread. “You have to catch it and throw it to the next person in line, then deal with the defence coming at you right after.”

They are sitting out in the courtyard again, this time halfway draped over the rocks they were so neatly sitting on the other day.

“But I thought you weren’t supposed to touch it?” Terry is nibbling on a fire apple kindly offered from Damian. His brows are furrowed and his irritation is slowly rising as the explanation goes on.

“You can’t touch it with your hands, but if you’re in the second round and everyone on your team has been struck above the waist, you get to use bending to move it.”

“Why would I be paying attention to who’s been struck above the waist?”

“Because it gets the other team points?” Damian asks. Dick nods empathically. Terry sighs.

“But otherwise you don’t get to move it?”

“Yes. Then you would need to get a teammate to move it while you fight the defence right away.”

“And this is all exclusive to the Capital?”

“Of course,” Dick looks mildly horrified. “Beating up the other team will get you banned from any kind of official game. What kind of monsters do you think we are here?”

“Well, you are the ones with extra point for the tender areas.”

The brother’s chuckle fondly at Terry. Damian twists a scroll in his hands to read it further. He shakes his head.

“Terry, the people here are my elite forces. Basic training only entertains them so much. If I don’t let them beat each other up once in awhile, they get rusty, and then I have to do my own life-guarding.”

Dick snorts inelegantly. Damian raises an eyebrow.

“Dami, guarding you only entails keeping a firm hold on the tails of your royal robes. No one ever gets the chance to go on the offense with you.”

“I like to keep an advantage,” Damian says, huffing slightly. “Usually that means the element of surprise.”

“We had to keep him on a leash in his early teens,” Dick mock-whispers to Terry, who cannot contain his laughter. Damian flicks Dick gracefully in the ear.

The two begin poking each other like a proper set of brothers when Jason appears in a doorway at the end of the courtyard behind them. Terry waves weakly, very aware of the fact that they have not spoken since the last time they trained and that he has no idea of what to say to Jason now.

The fact that he has yet to see Jason in the last two days has made him more and more aware of the fact that Tim was important to Jason in a different way than he was to the others. It was not a difficult connection to make. The thought makes him nervous as to what he should think of Jason, as well as to what Jason thinks of him.

Does Jason hate him? Does he see Tim in Terry? If he does, what does that mean? Terry cannot imagine that Jason wants anything from him because of it, because Jason has never treated him as anything other than the latest of his eager pupils. Still, Terry is not sure he can act like it anymore. The fact is that he has the spirit of someone Jason loved locked somewhere in himself, with little to no idea of how to access him.

That is the heavy thought on his mind when Jason approaches them. He looks at Terry as he sits down by them, and Terry diverts his eyes. Jason frowns, but Dick gets to him first.

“Jason, you like Fireball, right?” He tilts his head and looks seriously at him. Jason keeps his eyes on Terry for a second, contemplating his choice, before he takes the bait.

“Yeah, sure. Why?”

“We are trying to teach Terry how to play the game properly,” Damian says, amused. His eyes are still on the scroll. “He seems less than receptive to the simplicity of the rules.”

Terry huffs a laugh. “Simplicity. You just told me the eleven ways to score points in it.”

“Hey, now.” Jason points at him. “It’s twelve if you know what you’re doing. I once put Li over my knee using only a pebble and one hand while I held the ball with the other.”

Terry gives a hopefully imperceptible flinch at being addressed. “I thought you could only use fire?” he says. Jason shrugs.

“The pebble was on fire. It’s as close as I can get.”

Dick nods sagely. “We have a subsection of the rules just for him.”

Terry groans.

“You are killing me.”

Damian smiles serenely at his scroll. He is enjoying this. Dick chews on his lip, looking the three of them over for a moment. Then he clasps his hands together over his knees.

“You know, if we want to teach Terry properly, the best way would be for us to show him.”

Terry tenses up, anticipating the worst. “Now, just a second.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Damian says. “I’ve certainly seen how well he can learn when he gets to learn by doing.”

Jason raises his eyebrows at Terry, who shies away a little bit. He glances between Dick and Jason and back again. They’re both smiling eagerly at him.

Terry sighs. He knows defeat when he sees it.

* * *

 

They split into two teams, and Terry gets paired up with Dick. They aren’t nearly enough people for there to be a proper match, which means that a lot of the rules get cut out. It’s a relief for Terry, not that it makes it simple.

Terry is paired up with Dick, which is something of a relief. Dick is kind, easy to interact with. He makes the game easier to lose. Damian is an admirable fighter and a respected politician, but he can get a little competitive with more trivial things.

Dick gets the first serve. He hauls the ball in Damian’s direction, and the Fire Lord readies himself. He blocks it with an easy maneuver and deflects it in Jason’s direction. Jason deflects it back to Dick and Terry’s side of the field.

The first round is supposed to be a matter of getting the ball past the other team. Terry was following them well that far into the instructions. It is the part that comes after it that makes it difficult.

They lobby the ball back and forth for a few blows. Jason aims without fault at Dick’s face, and Terry suspects he knows the reason why. Dick takes advantage of Terry’s fire to get harder shots, and the ball is soon charred black and worn from usage. It will not catch fire, ironically enough, but it can still suffer the effects of it.

Dick passes to Terry who jabs sharply at the ball. It goes in Damian’s direction, but Jason is closer to them and gets to it first. The ball comes flying back at such a speed that Terry has no hope of stopping it. He elects to instead duck and cover his face, and the ball goes flying into a nearby wall. It hits with such force that a sizable scorch mark is left behind.

Terry stares at the ball on the ground. Behind him, Jason cheers.

“Still got it,” he teases, and accepts Damian’s solemn handshake. Dick shakes his head.

“He always does that. Even though he knows it’s _cheating._ ” He directs the last few words towards Jason, and Jason responds with the mature gesture of sticking his tongue out.

“What even _is_ cheating in this palace?” he shoots back. Dick opens his mouth, but he does not actually have an answer.

“Let’s set up for the next round,” Damian suggests.

They play for the better part of the afternoon. It cuts into Terry’s training time, but Dick and Damian vehemently justify the current activity as sufficient training. Jason only smirks and shakes his head, and the game continues.

The sun is beginning to set when they finally give up. Terry collapses by the pond and watches as Dick comes to rest beside him. Jason and Damian have already retreated inside for the night.

“Does he ever lose at that game?” Terry refers to Jason, who has had an impressive winning streak of six rounds. Dick chuckles and lies down on his back. Sweat slicks his hair and makes it stick to his forehead. He closes his eyes.

“He used to. Back when we were all spry and he didn’t have the advantage of strength.”

Terry sees one of the turtle ducklings trudge out of the pond with great difficulty. Its small feet make it difficult to gain any traction on the rocks which line it. The little creature waddles up to Dick, who does not seem to notice the new presence.

“Tim would always win these things,” Dick says, unaware of the way it makes Terry tense up. “He used to take us three on one, and that was with water bending.”

Terry draws in a deep breath, and it comes out as a sigh. Thinking quickly, he reaches over and plucks the turtle duckling from the ground. It goes willingly, likely already used to touch from a long time of Dick visiting this pond. It tucks its little legs up against its shell, prepared to be held.

He deposits it gently on Dick’s chest. Dick twitches, then opens one eye. He smiles.

“Hey, little guy,” he says. His hands comes up to gently stroke a finger over its head. Terry feels like he has successfully deflected something.

They remain silent for a long few minutes, just watching the sky together. It is turning a milky yellow which blends easily into red. It is a beautiful sight. Terry does not think he will ever tire of it.

Dick does not talk anymore. He simply lies there and lets Terry have his space, and Terry is grateful for it. When Dick sits up and announces his need to go to bed, Terry offers him a small nod.

He declines Dick’s offer to walk together. He tells him honestly that he would like to stay up and think for a bit.

Dick looks concerned, but he allows Terry his peace. Once he is gone, the duckling directs its attention to Terry. It nudges at his foot, insistent.

Terry reaches down to pick it up. It feels like an attempt to comfort, and he accepts it as such.


	6. Chapter 6

The sun was high in the sky, casting its warm glow on the sand. The beach was a welcome respite.

Dick was laughing joyously. He flitted easily out of the water and back in, his bending making the movement effortless. It was irritating Damian immensely. 

They seemed to be playing a sort of game, in that Damian was attempting to hit him with very carefully aimed jabs while he dodged. However, Damian’s smaller frame made for some less smooth running in the water, and he seemed to be a perpetual step behind his brother. It was an amusing sight, to the point where Jason was chuckling warmly at them from a little further up the beach. 

He sat watching them, an arm slung lazily around Tim’s shoulder. Tim was smiling, but his attention was elsewhere. A book rested on his lap and his eyes were fixed on the small text. Jason’s warm hand was squeezing lightly at his arm, and he brought up a hand to squeeze back. 

Bruce and Talia were still back at the house, no doubt sorting out the last of their royal business before they could properly enjoy their weekend. They would be there in due time, as the boys all knew.

The Fire Lord never missed a chance to dunk his sons in the water if he could help it. It was a well known fact. 

“Get him, little D!” Jason was shouting, jostling Tim in his movement. Tim sighed, content. He was enjoying himself greatly. 

That was, at least until Jason leaned away from him and a deft hand snatched his book out from under his hands. He looked up, mildly annoyed, but Jason’s smile was disarming and it made it hard to actually get angry. 

“And you, bookworm. You should get some sun too. Maybe even a swim.” Jason raised his eyebrows. Tim glanced at the lazy waves sloshing across the sand. 

“I’m almost always near water,” he replied. “Do I need to be constantly submerged to prove my affiliation with it?”

Jason shrugged, smiling. He slipped Tim’s bookmark into the book (when did he pick that up?) and closed it smoothly. Tim was ready when he got up and pulled on his arm. They left the safety of the blanket and parasol for the soft warm sand. 

“You could at least enjoy a vacation when it’s happening,” Jason teased. He brought Tim to the edge of the water and dipped in a foot. 

“Whoever makes the smallest splash gets buried in the sand later.” He was challenging. Tim raised an eyebrow, to which Jason added “And no bending.”

Tim chuckled. “I think I have a better idea.”

Jason followed his gaze to a nearby cliff which stood tall over the water, framing in the sand of the beach. It was too high to make a normal dive from. 

Tim leaned into Jason’s space to whisper conspiratorially.

“Do you trust me?”

“As far as I can throw you.” Jason grinned, and so they found themselves a mere few minutes later at the top of the tall rock face. It was not a long climb, but it would be an adventurous fall. 

Tim stood at the edge, looking down at the water’s surface. 

“Ready?” he asked. Jason breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. 

“Don’t let me die, ok?”

Tim grinned happily. He took Jason’s hand and lead him to the edge. 

“Hold on. I’ll take us down.” He guided Jason’s hands around his waist and lined them up sideways with the cliff. 

“One,” he said. Jason stood ready. His hands had an iron grip around Tim. 

“Two,” Tim slipped an arm around Jason to rest at his back. He held him gently.

“Three.”

They jumped together. Jason gave an enthusiastic yell, and Dick and Damian shouted their replying cheer from the water below. Tim was too focused to join in. With a smooth wave of his free hand, he summoned the water of the ocean to meet them. It parted below them, ready to catch them and soften their fall. They did not feel the collision with the water so much as the caress of it as they disappeared beneath the surface. 

The splash was legendary.

 

* * *

 

 

Terry jolts awake with a gasp. His heart is hammering in his chest, blood rushing in his head. 

It takes him a few moments to realise that he is in bed in his dark room. Faint shadows playing on the walls through the paper screens are the only things he can see. 

He breathes hard and tries to comprehend the vivid images still flashing in his head. Whatever that was, it was not a dream. He knows it, He is just not sure what it actually was. 

For a few panic-laced seconds he just lies there, feeling dry air in his lungs and trying to make sense of what just happened. It was so real. Like he was there seeing it himself. Perhaps even being a part of it. 

He sits up in the bed, eyes flitting around in the darkness. His own fast breathing is the only sound in the room. He swallows to manage his dry throat. 

“Tim?” He whispers hesitantly into the empty air. It feels like all his breath goes into making the sound. Listening to the silence takes all his focus, and he works hard to quiet down his breathing.

No one answers him. The silence remains. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Triple chapter to spoil you for the time gap. 
> 
> Written partially in class, like a rebel B)

Damian sits alone in his study. His brush moves across paper, tireless. He has a lot of work to do. 

The walls around him are a warm red colour, much like the rest of the palace. Bookcases line them to his sides, and behind him is a mounted display of old ornaments and artifacts sacred to the royal family. His grandfather’s sword, as well as his father’s crown. Damian’s own sits on the desk beside him, as it became tedious to work with when he had to bow his head over the desk. 

Damian cherishes the time he gets alone, even if it comes with work attached. He does not mind doing what must be done to ensure the prosperity of his citizens. At the moment, that seems to mean a long trek through the military’s record of expenses. He turns away from the scroll in order to inspect the current page of a book he has open on the desk. It provides further insight into his writing, and he continues with renewed vigour. 

However, his brush is stalled at the sound of a hesitant knock against the doorframe to the study. The door is not closed, and so he sees clearly when he looks up who it is. The young Avatar stands just outside the frame, looking tired and faintly anxious. Damian straightens his back. 

“Terry. Welcome. Please come in.” He gestures with his free hand. Terry takes a few steps inside, and Damian can clearly see the slight bend to his posture. He cannot help the concern which surfaces in his mind. He has noticed how Terry has become increasingly stressed over the last week. 

“I wanted to ask you something,” Terry says. Damian puts down the brush. He blows lightly on the drying ink. 

“Anything you need, Terry. We’re here to help.” It is something he has heard both Dick and his father say to Terry in the past, and it applies well to the situation. Terry relaxes a bit, but he keeps his distance from the desk. Damian waits patiently until he speaks.

“Before, when I asked about Tim, you said that his father wanted to keep him secret.”

“That’s correct.” Damian puts down the brush. He blows lightly on the drying ink. 

“Why?”

He looks up. “Why?”

“If the Avatar is found out before they become old enough, there is generally some spread of it, even if they are not supposed to take up their responsibilities yet. Why would the chief of a Water Tribe keep that from the world?”

He is right. Damian certainly remembers how thoroughly Terry was paraded around the Earth   Kingdom capital when he was first found. The queen was quite proud to be able to present an Avatar from her homestead. Jason was less excited to put a child on such a pedestal, and so he asked Damian whether it would be acceptable to train him at the palace. Damian found himself with no real argument against him.

“We don’t rightly know why the chief and his wife had such ambitions,” he says slowly, carefully. This is a prominent political figure he is discussing, and he is careful to skirt around any potential accusations. “There are a lot of theories, but nothing confirmed, and so we cannot assume.”

“It just seems so odd to me,” Terry says. “There’s was no point in hiding him. He was going to be revealed and take up his destiny. What were they hoping to achieve?”

Damian has asked himself that same question before, as have Dick and Jason. He has a number of theories why. However, he made his decision long ago on how to feel about it.

“We thought about this a lot after it happened, Terry. The fact is that it does not matter. All the reasons in the world for hiding him does not change the fact that the Avatar died. There was no changing that, and there was no going back. Dwelling on it became something of a family activity after that, and we decided together that it would not make a difference to know.”

Terry does not say anything to that. He takes a light breath, and his hands wring each other in a slow, nervous motion. His eyes look anywhere but at Damian.

Damian waits a full minute before he speaks again. 

“I’m sorry, Terry, but I’m afraid I don’t know. I have no desire to know. I understand your curiosity, but some things may be better left alone.”

“I wanted to ask his parents about him,” Terry mumbles, almost inaudibly. Damian startles.

“Terry, as one of your mentors, I would advise you not to do that. I can see no way that would end well.”

“Yeah,” Terry huffs a breathless laugh, more of a gust of air. “I figured. I guess I just wanted to understand him better.”

Damian looks at Terry’s defeated expression, and feels some measure of pity for him. He thinks he could understand the feeling, perhaps through the lens of having to fill his father’s shoes, but he knows that in the end Terry is alone in his experience. The thought is disheartening. 

Despite this insight, he does not know what to say to help it. 

“I understand that you want to get to know him, Terry. It is just that Tim had a rather messy life. I do not think his family would appreciate it being brought up again, as it was a sudden and devastating experience.”

“I understand that.” Terry finally looks him in the eye. He nods reassuringly, but Damian suspects that it is for his benefit. Damian nods back. 

“I would suggest asking Jason for information if you want to get to know Tim better. They were very close as children, as you know.”

“Yeah, I know. It's just difficult, you know?”

Damian suspects he does not. Not really. 

“Try it. I think it would do Jason some good to talk about it again. He never was very good at that.”

Terry nods again. “Thank you. I should go find Dick now. I have meditation to do with him..”

Damian dismisses him gracefully, and then watches him leave. He dips his brush in ink and begins writing once more. Memories come to him unbidden, spurned on by the meeting with his nervous charge. Damian was not present for the death of the Avatar, but he was there to see everything that happened next. 

“How could you keep this from everyone?” Bruce had demanded of the chief. 

“It matters little what we did,” Jack had replied. “He was going to be revealed on his sixteenth birthday. No one had any right to him before then.”

Bruce had opened his mouth, but the chief’s wife had snapped at him before he could say anything.

“You let him die!” She began to advance, halted only by her husband’s hand on her arm. “What gives you the right to judge us when you’re responsible for his death?”

The Fire Lord had no answer to that.

Damian straightens the scroll and leaves it on the desk to dry. He stands up and makes sure that everything on the desk in in perfect order, relishing in the comforting action. He looks at the open door where Terry walked out.

Perhaps work can wait a little bit today. He feels the need to take a walk, if only to calm his nerves.

* * *

 

Terry walks out to the courtyard with slow, meandering steps. His mind is a haze of questions. 

If he cannot talk to chief Jack, Jason seems to be the best option. However, pulling at that thread is a risky thing to do, and Terry is not sure he wants to try it yet. It might unravel whatever relationship they already have, and Terry really likes Jason. He wants to be Jason’s friend, as himself and no one else. Whether that means he will never really get to know Tim, he does not rightly want to know. 

He meets with Dick and they begin their meditation. It works as terribly as it usually does, which is getting more and more frustrating. The fact that he has all the answers in himself is helping exactly nothing if he is unable to access them. 

Knowing Tim will be a step to knowing himself. Who he is and what he should be. It is the same as with all the other Avatars, but Terry knows as much as he can find out about them. At least without getting into direct contact. Falling short of this fundamental part of his role as the bridge between worlds puts a pit in his stomach. 

Even at fifteen years old, Tim was a born prince and a respected figure, as well as a good friend. At seventeen, Terry is not sure he is any of those things. The more he finds out about Tim, the less he knows about him. 

Terry does his best to clear his thoughts at Dick’s gentle instruction. If he relaxes his face and lets his mind go out of focus, he imagines he can almost see something behind closed eyelids. The blurry outlines of faces, though it could just as easily be a trick of the light.

He breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth. He will keep at this. 

He is going to get contact, no matter what it takes.

**Author's Note:**

> Due to some shifting interests and conflict, I can't really finish this story. 
> 
> If you came this far with me, thank you, and I'm sorry. 
> 
> It ends with Terry finally connecting, and Tim showing him how he died fighting a tsunami (using the avatar state). Then Jason gets his hug, and he tells Terry he doesn't owe him anything. He's his own person.


End file.
